Midwestern Conventions?

So much of what is Steampunk, Victoriana, or Maker-Related (as far as I can see) seems to happen in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, NYC, and Atlanta.

There are many events happening on or near the coasts, I don't tend to see nearly as much in the middle, save for what DJ Infamous and crew manage in the Oklahoma through Missouri and Kansas area - and maybe I am just not looking in the right places.

I'd love to find some events in the Northern Ohio, Michigan, Eastern Illinois, Northern Indiana areas, but anything within less than 6 hours driving distance would be fantastic.

So, I am putting this thread up in hopes that people will share information Conventions happening in the Midwest. I know I could use the information, hopefully others can benefit as well.

Replies to This Discussion

We in the Ohio Steampunk Society (OSS) have plans to invade MARCON in Columbus (Memorial Day weekend) and turn that into our yearly midwest meetup, but we've been busy in the meantime with smaller picnics and such in Cincinnati (check out the pictures). Mark Twain was right about Cincinnati being 10 years behind, but we're working on building up the midwest steampunk scene.

I found this one the other day, Con on the Cob (October). It's in Hudson Ohio, it isn't directed right at the steampunk community as WindyCon is, but it might have potential for us mid-westerners.http://www.cononthecob.com/info.html

There's a number of us from Ohio who are on the "might attend" list for Windycon. There is a strong possibility that a gang of us will be there in November; perhaps Windycon and Marcon could be bi-annual meetups for midwest steampunks? We seem to have focused on Marcon as that seems like the biggest central Ohio con we could think of. It's a shame that you are no longer in the Queen City as we actually have four events coming up in August (well technically two of those are in Kentucky)

I'm always wanting and planning to come back through Cincinnati, but this last year has been rather harsh on me.

I had to sell three commissions really cheap back in February, just to make sure I could get back there for a family funeral spur of the moment, meaning I have been working hard ever since February on work I had already been paid for.

I finish the last of those commissions sometime this month, then I will be revamping my comic book and finishing the illustration on my children's book. Finances allowing, I am really hoping to be back on the road and on the convention circuit again soon, and will be routing things however I can to have a way to stop through or near Cincy as many times as possible.

I'm the Masquerade Director for Windycon as well as working with the costume programming track (If I can ever get them to respond to their e-mails...) Please keep me posted if you'll be coming and if you'd be interested in doing any demos or panels.

I will be posting some suggested panels in about a week. If anyone here has anything they want to suggest/run/be on, please let me know! We are shooting for 8-10 hours of costume/prop based programming, and having specific awards in the masquerade competition for things like best mod. Or if you don't want to compete you can walk the Clockwork Catwalk as part of Saturday Night's programming.